


Lead the Way

by JoMouse



Series: TFLN [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Art Student Zayn Malik, Business Student Liam, Don't copy to another site, M/M, Meet-Cute, Texts From Last Night, University Student Liam, University Student Zayn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 10:44:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20505680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoMouse/pseuds/JoMouse
Summary: Liam's brain tends to go on autopilot and he wakes up with someone else's keys in his pocket.Based on TFLN (505): Oh god I found a set of car keys in my pocket, and I have no idea who’s they are





	Lead the Way

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings and salutations!
> 
> Another kind of silly, fluffy bit for you. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Big thanks to [Marie](http://quietzap.tumblr.com) and Jenn who are awesome cheerleaders and betas who put up with me and my whining far more often than anyone should have to do. I love you both!
> 
> xx-Joey
> 
> Don't know 'em. Don't own 'em. Don't show 'em.

Liam’s phone buzzed on the table next to him and he slapped at it to snooze the alarm. Nine more minutes of sleep would be a Godsend; he’d rolled in from the party the night before at around three a.m. despite knowing he had an early morning class. He finally made contact with the obnoxious device and let out a sigh of relief when it silenced. His eyes closed and he welcomed the bliss of sleep.

Less than a minute later, predictably, his eyes flew back open and he sat upright in bed grabbing for his phone, worrying if he’d actually snoozed the alarm or turned it off. With a groan, he realised that he had indeed shut the alarm off and all dreams of more sleep flew out the window. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he dropped his head into his hands, elbows balanced on his knees, letting out a groan before running his hands roughly through his hair and tugging on the ends in a lame attempt to get blood flowing to his brain.

He glanced down at himself, realizing for the first time that he was still wearing his clothes from the night before, exhaustion necessitating falling face first into bed as soon as he’d entered the flat; he was honestly surprised he’d gotten his boots off. He stood to stretch and winced, a pain shooting through his right hip and he reached down to poke at the spot, finding a hard lump in his jeans pocket.

Reaching inside, he pulled out a key ring and tossed it on his desk. He hadn’t even driven to the party the night before, the house was only a fifteen-minute walk from his flat. Although he never drank much, he hated to risk being on the road with anyone who was stupid enough to drive after drinking too much. Shedding his clothes, he made his way to the bathroom to begin his daily ablutions.

He heard his phone again, alerting him that he had fifteen minutes left to get out of the flat or he’d miss the bus to campus for his class. He reached for the keys on the desk, freezing when the key chain dug into his palm. Holding his hand out flat, he stared at the keys with an Avengers keychain, the end of the ‘A’ matching up to the divot in his skin.

Grabbing his phone, he sent off a text to his best friend:  _ Oh god I found a set of car keys in my pocket, and I have no idea who’s they are. _

***

Niall met Liam outside of his classroom, hand held out and Liam dropped the keys into them. The blond looked them over, poking at the keychain and examining each of the keys. “Not car keys,” he pointed out. “Cool keychain. Lad or bird’s got taste.”

“Well, that’s helpful,” Liam deadpanned, grabbing the keys back and shoving them into his pocket, hissing when they pressed against the bruise he’d gained by sleeping on them earlier. Quickly, he switched them to his other pocket and followed Niall into the lecture, planning he’d go by the campus security offices after class to drop off the keys in hopes that the owner was another student that would check there for them.

Settling into his back row seat right next to the door, Liam searched the rest of the room looking for a familiar head of black hair as he set up his laptop to take notes. He didn’t know the name of the lad, but he’d been watching him since the first day of  _ From Talking Horses to Romantic Revolutionaries _ , a class he still wasn’t sure how he’d ended up taking. The boy was attentive and interacted a lot in class, the teacher always smiling whenever his hand shot into the air. 

Niall nudged Liam, drawing his attention away from his check of the front row. “How drunk were you? I mean, you weren’t drinking the last time I saw you.”

Liam shook his head. “I didn’t drink that much, just a beer or two, but I was exhausted and swear I must’ve slept through everything that happened after the party, but I still wound up at home with a stranger’s keys digging into my hip.” His eyes kept going towards the doorway whenever another group of students entered.

“Think lover boy will be here today?” Niall teased, laughing loudly when Liam turned a glare on him; not the reaction he had been hoping for. “He’s never missed class before.”

“As far as we know,” Liam muttered. He wasn’t a bad student, but he really struggled in this class and had taken a couple of days off despite it meaning he would miss out on seeing the dark-haired boy.

The professor, a tiny woman with big blonde hair, entered the classroom, pulling the door closed behind her and Liam let out a quiet whine and Niall patted him on the back. Once the door was closed, no one was allowed into the room, the teacher was extremely adamant about punctuality, another thing that had caused Liam to miss a class; thankfully she wasn’t as uptight about actual attendance.

She started lecturing about the latest chapter on women in writing and Liam focused on his notes, an easy feat without his usual distraction. The class was almost half over when there was light tapping on the door. The teacher continued lecturing and Liam shifted his eyes towards the door, turning his head completely when he spotted the previously missing dark-haired boy waving at Liam, a tight smile on his pale face save for the dark circles underneath his eyes, barely visible behind a pair of glasses Liam had never seen before.

He mouthed, “What?” and the boy pointed at the doorknob. Liam shook his head and pointed toward the front of the classroom. The boy put his hands together in a pleading position, pouting out his lower lip and giving him a damn impressive set of puppy eyes. Liam jabbed his finger towards the front of the room again just as the teacher stopped talking and started coughing.

Liam’s head whipped around and he saw the teacher standing with one hand on her throat and the other over her mouth. She quickly excused herself and exited through the door at the front of the classroom. Just as she was gone from sight, there was a knock on the door behind Liam. He jumped up and quickly opened it. The dark haired boy hurried past him with a quick thanks and moved toward the seat next to Niall, but the blond moved into it, leaving his previous seat, the one next to Liam, vacant.

“Thanks, man,” the boy said. “Worst morning ever.” He pulled a notebook out of his bag as the teacher reentered the classroom, red-faced but no longer coughing. Taking no notice of the new addition to the assembled students, she continued lecturing, voice a bit rough.

Liam tried to take notes on the rest of the lecture, but with his distraction sat right next to him, tongue held between his teeth as he bent over his notepad scribbling, it was a lost cause. The boy would look up occasionally at the teacher, Liam’s breath catching as he turned away quickly to avoid being caught staring.

The class finally ended without Liam typing another word. He’d managed to hear the teacher say, “The assignment’s due the next time we meet,” but had no idea what assignment she had been talking about. He looked to Niall for help, but the blond, as well as most of the class, were already gone or on their way out of the doors.

His eyes ventured sideways meeting the dark-haired boy’s, who was smirking at Liam and holding out a hand. “Zayn,” he said when Liam turned to him fully.

Liam slid his hand into Zayn’s, holding back a sigh at the warmth of his palm and how well their hands fit together. Zayn’s smile grew and he squeezed Liam’s hand drawing him out of his daze. “I’m Liam,” he spluttered, face flushing as he pulled his hand away and grabbed his pencil to fiddle with it.

“Thanks again for letting me in,” Zayn said, looking down at his notepad and over at Liam’s open laptop. “Can I ask you for another favour?”

Liam’s brain immediately screamed, “Anything!” but he clenched his jaw before it could escape. Zayn was looking at him expectantly, so he nodded in agreement, still not trusting his tongue not to betray him.

“Cool,” Zayn said, biting into his lower lip for a moment before releasing it and speaking. “So, I noticed you were a bit, like, distracted towards the end of class, I don’t know if that’s normal or summat, but I’m hoping not.”

Liam choked on his own breath and Zayn’s smirk grew warm while his eyes glittered with mischief. “Alright?” he asked and Liam’s head bobbed as he covered his burning cheeks with both hands. “I’ll let you use my notes for the end of class if you let me use yours from the beginning,” Zayn said, voice slightly rushed giving Liam a glimpse of nervousness that he could relate to, causing his shoulders to relax.

He laughed at the simplicity of the offer, his hands dropping from his face to his lap. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t thought of asking Zayn for notes instead of Niall since he was right there in front of him and his friend long gone. At the same point, the fact he was right there was the main reason his brain wasn’t functioning in the first place. “That’s a great idea. I can email you mine.”

Zayn pulled his phone down and looked at the screen. “Do you have time to run by the library to make copies of mine?”

Liam nodded, closing his laptop and preparing to put it away. “I don’t have anything else to do today except run by campus security,” he told Zayn.

“Seems a day for that,” Zayn responded, chuckling. Liam glanced over at him, brow furrowed in confusion. “I have to go by there myself. It’s not too far from the library, we can swing by there after we make copies, but, like, only if you want.”

Liam smiled. “That’s fine. You can fill me in on what the assignment is we are supposed to be turning in the next class.”

They chatted as they walked about the class and their course loads; Zayn was a double major in English and Graphic Arts with a desire to create comic books and graphic novel while Liam was majoring in business. “You can run my publishing company,” Zayn teased and Liam found himself nodding, for the first time since choosing his course he was excited about a possible career path, even if Zayn wasn’t being entirely serious.

“Have you drawn anything?” Liam asked and Zayn struggled with his bag as they walked, pulling out a sketchbook and handing it to Liam. “Just a few ideas.”

Liam stopped walking to look, knowing he’d end up falling over if he tried to do both at the same time. He flipped through the pages, some just sketches and others fully inked, getting a strong impression of where Zayn was going with his idea. “The Muslim girl is the superhero? Like Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel?”

Zayn beamed. “Yeah. Exactly. Only this one is based off my littlest sister Safaa.”

“You have sisters?” Liam asked, handing the book back as they continued walking and began a conversation about being the only boy among sisters.

They were both so involved with the conversation, laughing that they had passed by the library and were standing in front of the security building. “Well, at least it’s still a place we meant to be,” Liam said, reaching into his pocket to pull out the keys. “Why did you have to come anyway?” he asked as Zayn reached for the door handle.

“Lost m’keys last night,” Zayn explained. “It’s why I was late for class. Couldn’t start my motorcycle and the only reason I got into my flat was because my mate Louis was with me. Although it’s his bloody fault I lost them in the first place.” Zayn entered the building and kept talking as Liam remained outside, frozen with his hand clutched tightly around the keys in his hand, Avengers logo digging into his palm much like that morning.

Zayn turned back to Liam, a confused look on his face before letting out a sharp laugh and heading back to pull open the door. “You coming then?”

Liam shook his head and held out his trembling hand to Zayn, opening it slowly to reveal the keys. “Are these yours?”

Zayn pushed completely out of the building and grabbed the keys, laughing. “Yeah! How the fuck did you manage to get them?”

The phrase sounded angry, but the tone was amused as Liam brought his hand back and rubbed it against the back of his neck, staring down at his feet. “I don’t know, to be honest. Woke up with them in my pocket. Do you know where you lost them?”

Zayn started walking again back the way they came, presumably to the library and Liam followed when he looked back over his shoulder, eyebrows raised in expectation. “Louis and I were a bit crossfaded last night and he decided footie in the park was an excellent idea. I tossed my jacket on the ground and the keys must have fallen out.” He twirled the keyring around one finger before shoving them into his pocket and smiling at Liam. “I didn’t even notice they were missing until this morning.”

They reached the library and headed inside towards the line of copy machines by the reference desk. “I walked through the park to come home and I must have found them.”

“Bit pissed were we?” Zayn teased, elbowing him as he laid his notebook on the platen and closed the lid as best he could.

“No,” Liam responded, blushing when Zayn gave him a disbelieving look as he pushed the green button and the copier whirred to life, a bit of the light escaping under the lid and sliding back and forth over their midsections. “I don’t drink much, but I go on, like, autopilot a lot. I get from point a to point b and don’t remember the trip.”

Zayn nodded as he flipped the page in his notebook and laid it back down. “Kind of how we got to the security building without noticing we’d passed the library because we were talking too much.”

Liam smiled and nodded, glad that Zayn got it. “Yeah, except usually it’s my own brain, not someone else, distracting me.”

“Just means you have a busy brain,” Zayn said, finishing up with the machine. He scribbled something on the papers before giving them to Liam. “My email so you can send me your notes.”

Liam smiled at the writing before he shoved the papers into his bag. “Maybe you should give me your phone number so I can make sure you get the email,” he suggested, grinning when Zayn laughed.

“Smooth.” He held out his hand and Liam placed his unlocked phone into it, watching as Zayn’s fingers moved over the broken screen carefully. He paused for a minute before pulling Liam in to snap a selfie, Liam’s face twisted in confusion under his backwards snapback. 

“What was that?” Liam asked as Zayn continued to fiddle with his phone before his own went off in his pocket and he handed Liam’s back. He looked down at it and smiled to see his wallpaper and lockscreen had been changed to the selfie; he resisted the urge to reach out and touch Zayn’s duck lips. “Nice.”

Zayn shrugged, smiling. “You can always change it back,” he said, chewing his lower lip.

“Nah, I don’t think so,” Liam assured him, locking the phone and sliding it into his pocket as they made their way out of the library.

“So…” Zayn said as they stood in front of the library. “My flat’s back that way.” He indicated the direction of their class with a thumb over his shoulder.

Liam nodded his head in the other direction. “I’m that way, so…”

“So…” Zayn repeated and they burst into laughter.

“I’ll see you in class, Zayn,” Liam said, turning away with a smile on his face. He only made it a few steps when Zayn ran up next to him and grabbed his hand. Liam looked down at their hands, narrowing his eyes but then wiggling his around until their fingers intertwined, relieved when Zayn squeezed gently. He looked back up to see Zayn smiling at him.

“Thought I should walk you back to yours, would hate for your busy brain to let you get lost,” Zayn explained.

Liam fought the giggle that crawled up from his stomach as he gave a serious nod. “Probably a really good idea.”

Zayn nodded, tugging on Liam’s hand to get him moving. “Lead the way.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come say 'hi' on tumblr (or send me a TFLN you'd like to see me tackle for Ziam or Sterek)! I'm josjournal there!


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